Do you have a goal you want to accomplish this year? I do. I’m working on a campaign with FitFluential and Under Armour to help redefine What’s Beautiful.

My goal is to get my body back into better running shape.  After having Ezra in December, I worked my butt off to get back into shape for my first post-baby half marathon, only to have a health setback that wiped away most of my endurance again.  I’m not ready to push my body into PR setting mode, but I am ready to rebuild my speed, endurance and overall strength in running.  I’m ready to work toward my goal with Under Armour and FitFluential so that I can feel like myself again when I run.

I love this campaign because while there are some sweet prizes up for grabs, it’s not about competing with one another.  It’s about inspiring, encouraging and empowering each other to reach our goals.  I love that.  I love that Under Armour is helping to encourage women to work toward their goals and redefine What’s Beautiful with this campaign.  If you’re a running mom, join my team where we can help each other balance working toward our running goals with being busy mamas: Running Moms.

What goal do you want to accomplish? It can be anything from nailing a PR to finding more balance in your life. I WILL.  Join me and Under Armour and together, we’ll achieve our goals!

What are you waiting for? Go sign up!

Join What’s Beautiful!

Join the Running Moms team!

Happy running and goal setting!

I don’t often post recipes on my blog, except that one time I posted a play dough recipe, but that doesn’t really count . My husband and I became vegetarians nearly a year and a half ago.  That has meant that we’ve become more creative with the kind of stuff we eat when we go out and when we cook at home. One of our favorite quick semi-healthy meals to eat is a Chipotle black bean burrito bowl.  While it is one of the healthier options on-the-go, there are a lot of added ingredients and sodium that aren’t so good for you.

First time making quinoa and black bean burrito bowls a few months ago

I decided to try to make my own version with quinoa instead of brown rice.  We all know that quinoa is super healthy, but I happen to also like it because it cooks so quickly.  It was delicious the first time we made it and now it’s a regular dinner option around here.  This week, I decided to change things up and make my burrito bowls into stuffed peppers.  They were a huge hit!

And it’s pretty too!

Bon appetit!

I had an appointment yesterday with a pulmonary specialist.  He couldn’t really give me a reason why I have pleurisy.  Usually, people have pleurisy because of a serious illness like pneumonia or tuberculosis or because of trauma to that region of the body.  I have not been sick and definitely haven’t had any trauma that would have caused this.  It’s pretty frustrating to not know why this happened, especially since I have never had any lung issues in the past.  I can tell you that if one more person suggests that running in the cold or running in general caused this, I may lose my mind.  Running and running in the cold does NOT cause a pleural effusion to develop in a person’s lung.

I was scheduled for a breathing test in this fancy machine, but they decided to skip it since breathing makes my pain worse

The pulmonologist put me on an anti-inflammatory until my follow up appointment next week.  In the meantime, I had another chest X-ray to check to see if the pleural effusion has gotten bigger since my last X-ray 2 weeks ago (if it has, it may need to be drained ).  Since I’m breastfeeding, I obviously have to be careful about the medications I take. When the doctor prescribed Naproxen, I requested to switch to Ibuprofen.  Naproxen is safe while breastfeeding for occasional use, but not recommended for continued use; whereas, Ibuprofen is one of the safest that can be taken (this is a really useful chart for other nursing moms).  I’m crossing my fingers that the Ibuprofen will help.  That’s what the hospital originally prescribed and I did start to feel better after I took it for a few days.  I’m hoping that being on a longer course of it will be what I need.

It’s like getting a present because what’s inside is a surprise

In more exciting news, Kona Kase kindly sent me a box to review.  If you haven’t heard of Kona Kase yet, it’s a really cool monthly box delivered straight to your door with different nutritional products.  I was really impressed with the products in the box they sent me.  I’m currently not eating dairy (my little nursling doesn’t tolerate it well) so I sadly couldn’t try everything in my box.  That’s what husband’s are for though.  Hubby really liked the Rickland Orchards Greek Yogurt bar (not pictured below because he ate it before I took the pic ).  I really want those caramel cups so I may or may not have put them in a safe place for when I re-introduce dairy into my diet.

So many yummy things to try!

My favorite thing in my Kona Kase was the Zing Chocolate Coconut bar.  It was dairy-free and tasted kind of like a Mounds or Almond Joy.  The Journey Savory bar was interesting.  Most energy bars are really sweet which bothers me sometimes because I don’t always want something sweet.  The savory bar was a nice change.

Chunky baby tried to steal my Zing bar

This Zing bar seriously tastes like candy

Pros:

• Great variety
• A lot of stuff in one box
• Opportunity to try new energy bars and snacks that you may not otherwise buy
• Free shipping on your box
• Can cancel anytime
• Discount for multi-month memberships
• If you consider how much these kind of nutritional products cost on their own, $15 is an amazing deal for this many products to try each month.
• A hand written note in my box.  May not sound like a big deal, but it sure was a nice personal touch that immediately made me appreciate the box that they sent even more.

Cons:

• If you have dietary restrictions, you may get stuck with things you can’t eat

I was really impressed with my Kona Kase box.  There were a lot of things to try in it so I think that certainly makes the $15 per month fee worthwhile.  If you want to try Kona Kase, use code FF2 and your first month will be only $10!

Happy running!

Disclaimer: Kona Kase sent me a box free of charge to review as a Fitfluential Ambassador. I was not obligated to give them a positive review. All opinions expressed are my own.

If you’ve been reading my blog for any length of time, you know it goes something like this “Yay, I love running!” then “I’m not running” then back to “Hey guys, I’m running again!”  Usually that’s due to the fact that I’m an injury prone runner.  I mean half the people that find my blog are people searching for injury information.  I finally got back to running after having Ezra and was really enjoying being injury-free.

I’m back in one of those “not running” phases because I’m still dealing with the pleurisy issue that originally sent me to the ER 3 weeks ago.  I’ve been X-rayed, CT Scanned, X-rayed again, and just this week I had a HIDA scan.  My doctor thought that my pain was consistent with that of gallbladder attacks – pain in the middle of my back that will radiate to my upper back/shoulder between my shoulder blades for periods of time, as well as wrapping from my back to my upper abdomen, lower ribcage area.  She thought it was possible that the pleurisy I am experiencing is referred inflammation from my gallbladder.

My HIDA scan [a fun test where they inject some radioactive stuff in you plus a hormone to make the gallbladder contract while in a machine that looks like a cross between a CT Scan and an MRI machine for an hour] showed that my gallbladder is just fine.

That means it’s still the pleurisy causing me intense pain 3.5 weeks since this all started.  I had some periods of time where the pain eased up.  I was even able to run the More Fitness Half and my lung was fine during and after the race.  A few days after the race, it started to hurt again.  I’m talking pain so bad I can’t even lift my 4 month old sometimes because when I do, I feel like a knife is stabbing me in the back.  I’m honestly the type to tough it out when I’m sick or something hurts.  I rarely ask for help with the kids, but with this situation, I’ve had to.

So now my question is why the heck do I have pleurisy?! I haven’t been sick.  I don’t have any chronic illnesses, asthma, etc.  Here I have pleural effusions (fluid in the lining of my right lung), plus a partial collapse at the base of my lung and I have no idea WHY.  I’m beyond frustrated.  My next step is a visit with a GI doctor just to make sure it’s still not somehow my gallbladder due to the type of pain I’m having.  Next week I’ll be seeing a pulmonary specialist to try to figure out why my lung sucks and how to fix it.  In the meantime, I need to block myself from Google because reading about how one of the treatments for pleurisy can be sticking a needle through the ribs to extract fluid from the lung is not something I want to think about right now.

I had planned on running the Iron Girl Half Marathon in Columbia on Sunday because I enjoyed it so much last year.  I also planned on running the Maryland Half Marathon on 5/11.  This is one situation where my procrastination has really paid off because I never actually got around to registering for either race so now I don’t have to worry about losing any money because I won’t be running them.

Have you ever had something so completely random pop up that kept you from running? Bonus points if you’ve had pleurisy too .

On Sunday, April 14, I ran the NYRR More Magazine/Fitness Magazine Half Marathon in Central Park – my first post-baby #2 race at almost 4 months postpartum.  I knew I was in for a tough race because of the fact I’d only run 3 times in the 2 weeks prior to the race because of my chest pain/pleurisy issue (which actually isn’t over yet, but I’ll explain more about that another time).   I had been feeling okay leading up to the race so I wasn’t too worried about the pleurisy causing any problems.  I was more worried that my legs might not be on board for 13.1 miles.

We had fun the day before the race walking around the city.

Zain being a tourist

Ezra being cute

Tourists

We woke up to this gorgeous view the morning of the race

It was a beautiful morning in Central Park when we lined up for the start.

Family pre-race

Lining up!

The race was 2 laps around Central Park.  Did you know Central Park is extremely hilly? I’d heard rumors that it was, but I didn’t really believe them until I felt those hills.  The first loop around the park didn’t seem too bad.  It was fun to take in all the sights along the way.

Hills

A little more than halfway through the first loop, we were lapped by the leaders.  It was pretty amazing to see Deena Kastor run right by us!

Lapped by Deena Kastor!

We passed the split that headed to the finish line halfway through the race which was a pretty big tease.

They won’t notice if I just sneak over to the finish line, right?

Can I hitch a ride?

I ran the race with my cousin and her friend.  We stayed together for the first loop which was fun because it made the miles go by quicker.  They both live in NYC so they were able to point out to me what everything was that we were passing.  During the second loop, I felt like I needed to speed up a tiny bit so I went ahead.  I took my packet of Energy Bits at about mile 6 and I really felt them kick in and give me an energy boost by about mile 7.  I didn’t take any gels during the race, just my Energy Bits.  I was able to speed up my pace a little more which probably wasn’t the smartest move.  During the last 3 miles, I was barely lifting my feet off the ground.  I kept telling myself to just put one foot in front of the other.  I reminded myself that the sooner I finished, the sooner I could see my boys.  I took 3 tiny walking breaks for about 10 seconds just to catch my breath.

The last mile felt like an eternity.  Mile 12 was near the starting line so to have to run past the starting line and keep going another mile to get to the finish was really hard mentally for some reason.

I crossed the finish line with an official time of 2:25:15 – my slowest half time, but I’m happy with it considering it had been less than 4 months since I had Ezra.  It’s hard to believe just a year ago, I PRed at the Iron Girl Half with a time of 1:58.  I have a lot of work to do to get my speed back!

The race was definitely tough, but I enjoyed my first time running in NYC.  I’d really love to do another race there one day.  After the race, I zombie walked my way out of Central Park to make my way to brunch with my boys and some of my hubby’s family.

Reunited at brunch and I’m looking a little rough

One of my little loves

My sweet boys

It was an awesome weekend in NYC, full of lots of good times with family!

I started to write my race recap for the More Fitness Half Marathon yesterday. Then I read that there was an explosion at the Boston Marathon.

I can’t find the words to write my race recap. I can’t find the words to talk about Boston. My heart feels heavy. This tragedy hits too close to home. I think for all of us runners, it’s so hard not to put ourselves in the shoes of those affected. I can’t stop thinking about the little boy who lost his life. He was there to cheer on his dad. Just the day before the Boston Marathon, my husband and kids were cheering me on in Central Park for my race. I cannot even fathom thinking about how I would feel if something happened to them at my race. It makes my heart hurt.

I’ll find the words to write my recap another day. For now, I’m praying for those in Boston who have been affected by this senseless act and I’m holding my boys extra close.

I wore a race shirt in honor of Boston today

Posted with Blogsy

Just because I discovered that minimalist running is the right thing for me, does not mean that I don’t feel the need to try ALL the shoes.  I love my Altra Intuition 1.5s, but I keep seeing these really cool Skora running shoes on Twitter and Instagram.  I had a really hard time deciding which ones to try because naturally, I wanted to try all 4 styles.  I settled on the Core and took them for a their first run today (after I got my doctor’s permission to run again yesterday).

The verdict is that I love them.  They feel amazing on my feet.  They are very light and flexible with just the right amount of cushioning.  I also felt pretty good on my run.  I felt a little out of shape from taking a little over a week off, but not as bad as I thought I’d feel.  I have to get used to the warmer weather; it was 30 degrees the last time I ran and 70 degrees today – huge difference! I’ll post a more lengthy review of my new shoes for after I’ve put some more miles on them, but for now, here are my pretties:

And now for something even more exciting…a POPSUGAR Giveaway!

Have you ever visited the POPSUGAR website? They have some really cool content about everything from celebrities to health and fitness.  Basically, all the fun things I like to read about .  They are having a really sweet giveaway right now.  All you have to do is sign up for their Fitness e-mail newsletter and you’ll be entered to win a trip to NYC (including airfare and hotel), tickets to their FitSugar class event with Anna Kaiser, PLUS a $500 Nike gift card! Sounds pretty awesome, huh? And all you have to do to enter is sign up for their Fitness Fix e-mail!

Happy Running!

Disclaimer: POPSUGAR compensated me for this post. All opinions expressed are my own.

Not that I’ve tried just yet, but I am allowed to!

First of all, thank you to everyone for all the comments, tweets and Facebook messages of well wishes in the past few days.  And many thanks to my wonderful parents for helping us out this weekend! All I had to say was I wasn’t feeling well and suddenly, my mom has my fridge stocked with meals for a week .

I went to the doctor today to follow up on the whole chest pain pleurisy fiasco.  I’ve been gradually feeling better as the days go by.  My pain has drastically decreased and now I just have a slight heavy sort of feeling in my chest when I take a deep breath.  That’s much better than feeling like there was a knife in my chest and back.

The doctor said the good news is that I’m feeling better.  If I was still having the pain, then maybe we would have to worry that something else could be wrong.  I was a little nervous to ask if I would be okay to run my half marathon this weekend because I assumed the answer was going to be no.  Luckily, she said it was absolutely fine to run! She said I need to make sure I listen to my body, but running won’t do any further damage or anything.  I think I can handle that.

I’m going to resume running tomorrow and hope for the best.  I’m only going to run the race on Sunday if I 100% up for it.  The More Fitness Half Marathon course is 2 loops around Central Park so I also figure that if I’m not feeling great, I can always drop out after the first loop.  This race is strictly for fun, not for a PR.

Source

Leave it to me to have such a random health problem set me back.  I’m glad that the whole thing is (almost) behind me.

King of the playground

On an even happier note, it looks like spring is finally here! Although, it feels more like summer than spring since it’s 82 degrees today.  We took advantage of the warm weather and hit the playground for a bit.  It was my first time pushing the boys in the BOB Duallie for a walk.  That thing is a beast! I’m a little intimidated by the thought of running with it.

With Ezra in the car seat, he’s in the perfect position for Zain to harass him

My view

I’m feeling very lucky that the pleurisy didn’t last long.  When I was obsessively googling “pleurisy and running” a few days ago, I found stories about people who suffered from it for weeks and months.  I’m so lucky mine didn’t last that long.

I’m even luckier to have these two little guys to brighten my day

Such a cool guy

Baby chunk with tasty little fingers

Happy running!

In the middle of last week, I started having pain in my shoulder and upper back on my right side.  I was in a car accident 6 years ago and I still have pain in my neck/shoulder/back on that side from time to time.  It’s made worse by lugging around the infant car seat and picking up my 32lb 3 year old.  I figured the pain was just muscular like it always has been in the past and that maybe I strained myself somehow picking up the kids.

Then I started having chest pains.  When I try to take a deep breath, I get stabbing pain in the middle of my back and and in my chest.  It’s worse when I lay down.  Yesterday, I was up a 2am and couldn’t fall asleep for the rest of the night because of the pain.  The pain got worse as the day went on.  Usually, if I have some kind of pain or don’t feel well, I do my best to just suck it up and not complain.  My husband can attest to the fact that I was complaining A LOT about this pain.

I ended up having to call him to come home in the middle of the day to take me in the hospital.  The pain was so bad that I was in tears.  Googling my symptoms was pretty much the worst idea ever since the conclusion was certainly that I was dying.

We’re very fortunate to have family nearby so my parents were able to quickly come over to watch Zain.  When I told Zain that I had to go to the doctor and he didn’t want me to leave, he told me his nose and his tummy hurt so he needed to come to the doctor with me .  We took Ezra to the hospital with us so that I would be able to nurse him since we didn’t know how long we’d be there.

My EKG was fine when we got to the hospital so that meant it wasn’t too urgent for them to check me out.  We finally got taken back to see the doctor about 2.5-3 hours after we arrived at the hospital.

Giving people in the waiting room the side eye

More side eye

The doctor ordered a chest X-ray to rule out a collapsed lung and had the nurse give me some Percocet for the pain.  The X-ray turned out to be fine, but the blood test they did that can indicate a blood clot was elevated.  At that point, the Percocet wasn’t even touching my pain so they gave me more plus a shot of something stronger in my IV.  The drugs were taking the edge off my pain and helping calm me down, but I was still in pain.

Ezra was such a good baby. He didn’t cry once in the 8 hours we spent at the hospital.

Next they did a CAT Scan so they could determine if it was a blood clot or not.  Thankfully, it was not! I was pretty anxious from the whole situation.  They ended up diagnosing me with Pleurisy – inflammation of the lining of the lungs (in my case, just one lung) – and sent me on my way with a prescription for Percocet and Ibuprofen.  It was a fun 8 hours on a Friday afternoon/evening spent at the hospital.  I’m so thankful that it turned out to not be anything more serious.

This little smile makes everything better

I haven’t been able to run since this past Tuesday because of the pain and I don’t know when I’ll try to run again.  I know that right now, I am in far too much pain to even attempt it.  Breathing hurts when I’m just sitting down so there’s no way I can run.  It’s up in the air whether or not I’ll be able to run my half marathon next weekend.  If I feel better and am completely pain-free, I’ll go for it and just take it very easy.  If I still feel anything like I do now, I’ll just be spectating.

So there you have it – for once, I am running injury-free, but now it’s something else to set me back.

I always enjoy body after baby posts on other blogs so I wanted to share my story, complete with embarrassing photos…

My experience with getting back in shape after having Ezra has been drastically different from after I had Zain. There are a few reasons why: When I was pregnant with Zain, I gained about 40lbs…on top of the 20lbs I gained after hubby and I got married.

Happily married

The 20lbs came from the 2 miscarriages I had before I got pregnant with Zain and the toll they took on my body with the hormonal changes…plus a little emotional eating thrown in for good measure.

I did not exercise while I was pregnant with Zain. I had not been consistently running before my pregnancy so that wasn’t even an option. I started out regularly going on long walks with our dog who was a puppy at the time. When I had some unexplained bleeding around 9-10 weeks, I freaked out and stopped even going on walks.

My first baby

After I had Zain, I felt like I had a mountain to climb when it came to getting back in shape. Not only did I need to lose the baby weight, but I also needed to lose the pre-baby weight. I didn’t even reach my pre-Zain, pre-miscarriages weight until a few months before I got pregnant with Ezra (that would be about 2 years after having Zain).

April 2012, the best shape I was in before getting pregnant with Ezra

With my pregnancy with Ezra, everything was different. I started my pregnancy at a healthier weight. I ran until 20 weeks when I had to stop due to the tendonitis in my ankle. I wish I could have run for longer, but it is what it is. Even after I stopped running, I remained active by walking and using the elliptical. I gained 29lbs during my pregnancy – a much healthier amount and still in the 25-30lb recommended weight gain range.

I ran a (very slow) 5K at 33 weeks pregnant

Ezra is 3.5 months old now and I am a mere 5lbs away from my pre-pregnancy weight. I have not been dieting in any way because I don’t do diets; I like to eat whatever I want . Plus, I am running and breastfeeding so I am consuming a lot of calories to keep up with both of those things. I also know that with breastfeeding, the body sometimes likes to hang onto a little extra weight so I’m not stressing about those 5lbs. I’m just really thankful that I’ve bounced back quicker this time.

In addition to having a healthier pregnancy the second time around, the difference recovering from a natural birth as opposed to a c-section is another reason why I’ve been able to jump back into running so easily this time. It took a long time for me to feel healed enough to run after my c-section with Zain.

The funny thing is that I have never appreciated my body until after I had kids. I can now look back on pictures of myself pre-kids and wish I had that body again, even though I know that I wasn’t happy with my body then. Tell me I’m not the only one who does this .

2008 – Honeymooning in Hawaii. Can I have that body again?

Now that I’ve been through 2 pregnancies and experienced becoming the size of a house, I appreciate my body so much more when I’m back in shape. Plus, I appreciate what my body is capable of – creating these perfect little boys.

My perfect little men

So here you go:

5 days before Ezra was born

versus

This is just embarrassing…January 2010 – 10 days before Zain was born. Holy fat face.

At 14 weeks postpartum, following a 12 mile run:

There’s still work to be done, but I’m happy with where I am now

versus

This is how I looked 3 months after I had Zain. A lot of extra weight on my body

Like most women, I’ve struggled with body image issues for as long as I can remember. I’ve never truly been happy with my body and I’ve always wished I could change certain things. Having babies has helped me see that my body is capable of so much more than I ever knew it was and I appreciate it so much more for that, as cheesy as it sounds. Running has also shown me that my body is capable of more than I thought it was. I never thought I’d be able to work up to running 12 miles by 14 weeks postpartum, especially since it’s not like I ran until the end of my pregnancy. I started back at square 1. I’m feeling pretty confident and very excited for my first half marathon of the year in a week and a half!

Anyone else have drastically different experiences getting back in shape after having each kid?